Rangers sweep Army’s soldiers of the year, top squad awards
A team from 3rd Ranger Battalion won all three of the Army's annual Best Warrior awards: Best Squad, and both Soldier and NCO of the year.
An Army Ranger from Texas was named the Army’s Soldier of the Year while a Ranger teammate took the service’s NCO of the year prize.
The two were part of a five-man team of Rangers who won the Army-wide Best Squad competition, making a clean sweep of the awards for the Rangers and their command, US Army Special Operations Command.
Spc. Chancellor McGuire, from Georgetown, Texas was named soldier of the year during an awards banquet at the annual Association of the US Army conference in Washington D.C. Sgt. Jake Philips of West Chester, Pennsylvania was name the NCO of the year.
The two combined with three other Rangers — Staff Sgt. Andre Ewing, Spc. George Mascharka and Spc. Shane Moon — from the Ranger’s 3rd Battalion at Fort Moore, Georgia to win the service-wide Best Squad competition.
McGuire was featured in a video during the competition in which he said “Coming from Ranger Regiment, we strive in the rain and the woods, so this is like home.”
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The win marked the second straight year that a team of Rangers won the squad competition. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and Army Medical Command took last year’s individual award.
The Army’s annual best Squad Competition is a months-long event testing over 1,000 entrants from across the service. Squads from nearly every base and most major units compete in regional competitions to move on as one of 12 finalists representing the Army’s major commands.
Those final 12 teams spent a week competing at Fort Stewart, Georgia, in September in a wide range of combat skills, from land navigation and ruck marches to shooting events and under-fire medical scenarios. In the final event, the top four squads traveled to Washington D.C. to face review boards in front of senior Army leaders.
The Soldier and NCO of the Year awards go to the top individual performers in the competition.
A team from Medical Command took second place while Army Pacific took third.
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